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Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions (11)

Yes. The TV PLUS service is a mature service for the big girls and boys. We try to give you the freedom to “unbundle” your home and save. You can choose your own Internet provider and your own landline phone provider and negotiate much better conditions than with a big bundle. We also offer our own Internet service. Everything in a one-stop-shop, if you wish.

The simplest way is to call up your old service provider and ask for the conditions of canceling. In most cases you will be able to cancel if you have been using your subscription for more than 12 months. Please make sure you understand the conditions and read the “small print”. Please note: the TV PLUS boxes will work on your old existing subscription. So you can already order the TV PLUS service and even use it in parallel with your existing TV solution until you can cancel without having to pay a cancellation fee. In addition to the TV PLUS service, TV PLUS also offers our own Internet Service – see the INTERNET tab on our website.

Absolutely! We pay defined fees for the rights to stream the live TV channels and the VoD movies to you. We also pay separate fees for the 7-day replay feature and the right to use the Pause function. It is quite understandable that the people who produce the TV content and the movies want to be paid for that. Their rights are represented by a number of organisations, to which we pay those fees. In Switzerland we have quite a consumer-friendly legislation allowing all these nice features at a reasonable cost, so we can all enjoy them.

The rule of thumb is: 5Mbit/s (Megabits per second) of download speed and very little upload speed per box. It is useful to add some reserves to that minimum. We do recommend at least a “30/10” connection, to be on the safe side, especially if you have 2-3 boxes. So, if your Internet Provider says something like “50/50” or “100/10”, that is way more than enough to have 5 boxes working at the same time + surfing the Web + sending emails + a moderate file download, all on the same Internet access. Note: e.g. “50/5” refers to 50 Mbit/s download and 5 Mbit/s upload speed.

Absolutely, it is a good thing we have competitors, so the consumers can choose what’s best for them. There are basically 2 types of competitors (see the diagram below):

Services that use IPTV or DVB platforms like Swisscom, UPC, Sunrise and others. This means that the providers must have their own network, e.g. cable TV or TV over your telephone line. In Switzerland there are over 2 million households using these services. Here you have to contractually commit to at least 12 moths and have to buy all the services (TV, Internet, telephony) from the same provider. You are bound to your location and can not take their TV boxes with you somewhere else. You pay Fr. 100-140 on the average. With TV PLUS, you are independently able to buy your services and you pay 24.90 for TV PLUS and between Fr. 39 and 50 for the Internet to a smaller Internet service provider, saving about 50%.

Services that use OTT (Over the Top) platforms like Zattoo, Teleboy, Wilmaa, TV PLUS and others. OTT basically means that these services do not need an own network nor are they bound to one Internet provider. These providers have a lot of free subscribers, but only several tens of thousands of paying customers – mostly younger consumers who transition to more conventional TV-watching as they get older. In comparison, TV PLUS is a solution for people who don’t want to bother with installing apps and setting up the sometimes complicated SmartTVs or watching TV on a small phone screen. With TV PLUS, it is as simple as switching on and you are watching TV on a big screen instantly. We offer ease of use, TV, Youtube, Netflix and VoD all with the same (and only) remote control, 5 Boxes at the same time, 4K, Surround Sound.

We like to think that TV PLUS uses the best of the two worlds and combines their advantages to the benefit of the consumers

Datatrans is one of the leading Payment Service Providers in Europe and it is the interface between our e-shop and you as our customer. This service processes your funds transfer using an encrypted system which allows to execute your payments safely and easily. Sensitive data are saved encoded and certified only with Datatrans (and never on our servers).

If you are from Australia, g’day to you. No, we do not operate in Australia, but there is a separate and unrelated outfit also called TV Plus in Australia. If you have an inquiry and you are from Australia, you are probably a customer of the Australian TV plus. Please contact them at http://www.tvplus.com.au/ . Thanks for your understanding.

The TV plus app that is installed on some Samsung TVs is owned by Samsung themselves. Our TV PLUS service is an independent TV service offered to customers in Switzerland. We are not associated with Samsung in any way. Please contact Samsung directly with questions regarding the app.

Some customers prefer to manually pay a monthly bill sent to them in the post and we understand that. With our low pricing it is impossible for us to offer monthly invoices as a payment method for handling and cost reasons so we work with external partners. For that reason we decided to offer all popular credit cards, the PostfinanceCard, and PayPal as payment methods for the monthly subscription payments. You can also use the POWERPAY invoice payment method for new orders at this time. If you do not have one of those cards though and don’t want to deal with monthly invoice payments, there is a simple solution: you can open a PayPal account for free and use it for your TV PLUS order and monthly subscription payments. Our monthly subscription is basically always the same, but if you buy or rent movies or series from our HollyStar service, those costs are added to the monthly bill. This is how it works:

When you order the TV PLUS starter package, select PayPal as payment method. Or switch to PayPal later in the TV PLUS My Account. Your PayPal account must already be created and the required amount available in it.

Before the subscription runs out you make a monthly payment from your bank account to PayPal, best using a permanent order from your bank. Make sure there are enough funds in the PayPal account as PayPal works like a bank account.

TV PLUS charges your PayPal account automatically. This works without any additional cost for you.

You get a monthly statement from PayPal confirming the payment.

You need only 5 minutes to open a PayPal account, it is easy and free. And, you can also add a credit card to the PayPal account if you want to avoid the monthly bank transfers.

There are 3 parts to the Sky offering: Sky Sport, Sky Show and Sky Store. These can be subscribed individually. The easiest way to fond out what you can watch is here. Click on Prices and Details at the bottom and review all the content and the current pricing for the subscriptions. To enjoy Sky you need to obtain a Sky account from Sky Switzerland separately. We recommend to use your computer or tablet to open an account. Then you only need to log in once on the TV Box and you will stay logged in.

About The TV PLUS Subscriptions (9)

You can cancel the TV PLUS subscription at any time after the first 3 months. You will still receive your subscribed Live TV channels until 1 month after your last payment. After that time, since you may keep the TV PLUS Box, you can still use the box for everything outside the TV PLUS service: e.g. YouTube, Netflix or the Media Center to play your local content.

Yes. The TV PLUS service is a mature service for the big girls and boys. We try to give you the freedom to “unbundle” your home and save. You can choose your own Internet provider and your own landline phone provider and negotiate much better conditions than with a big bundle. We also offer our own Internet service. Everything in a one-stop-shop, if you wish.

We tried to have a very balanced channel lineup covering the whole of Switzerland well. In addition to over 70 German speaking channels TV PLUS currently has 24 Italian-speaking channels from Switzerland and Italy and 39 french-speaking channels from Switzerland and France. For our many English-speakers in Switzerland TV PLUS offers 35 English-speaking channels (5 in the Starter pack and 30 in the English language pack for CHF 7.50/month. On top of this, we have over 40 full HD sports and premium channels provided by Sky Sports and Sky Show packages. We feel that most competitors have a less balanced offering. If we do not have certain channels you desire, please let us know via Live Chat (Bubble in the right bottom corner) and over the next months, having gathered input from users, we will work on acquiring the channels people ask for most.

The 5 boxes sharing one account can be anywhere in Switzerland and watch TV independently of each other at the same time. They do not have to be using the same Internet provider. All boxes share the same recordings, i.e. you can record a show from the box in your living room and then watch it on another box e.g. in your weekend house in the Tessin.

The HollyStar service: your box is already registered at HollyStar. You don’t need to do anything. When you watch a movie you will be charged once a month for all the movies you have watched. You pay per view. There are no costs if you don’t watch anything.

Netflix: you need to open a Netflix account if you don’t already have one, best done on your computer. Then you log in once on the TV box and you are ready to watch Netflix. You pay via your Netflix account which is separate from TV PLUS. You are paying a flat rate subscription and you can watch as much as you want according to the current business model of Netflix. You can cancel Netflix monthly.

You have the choice: pay per view or use pay a monthly flat rate fee. Or both.

You do not need to enter any passwords on the TV PLUS box in order to watch the movies and series. We automatically create your account and log your TV box in, and then we charge your account for the watched movies the next month. On the other hand, to access the 18+ area on the TV Box, you will need to create a security password and use it responsibly. This is how it works:

In any Browser on your PC or Tablet, go to www.hollystar.ch/en and click/tap on “Sign in” in the top right corner.

The recording capacity is limited to 250 recordings (not to be confused with hours). With assorted movies and sports recordings this can easily mean 600 to 800 hours of recording capacity. We have about 12’000 boxes operating with this concept and we have no knowledge about any user who has reached their limit. If needed we can increase the limit at a later date. Just for clarity: all recordings are stored in the cloud, not on the TV Box.

The TV PLUS Box (15)

Firstly, you only pay for the LIVE TV subscription once, but you can use up to 5 boxes at the same time for the one subscription price. Secondly, you can have one box in your living room, one in your bedroom and one in your weekend home. So you can enjoy the whole content yourself, wherever you are. Thirdly, you can have one box for you, one box for your spouse and one for your kids, and all of then can watch a different TV show at the same time. You just need to have “enough” Internet to watch on multiple boxes at the same time. The rule of thumb is: 5Mbit/s (Megabits per second) per box. And finally, if you order a movie or record a TV show, all your boxes will have access to those items. In other words, you can start watching something in the living room and continue tomorrow morning in your study or on Sunday in your weekend home.

Just about anywhere, provided you have cables which are long enough to connect to your TV and the Internet. You do need to be able to see the box (or at least its infrared receiver window on the front) because the remote control works with infrared signals.

No. The box comes to you already enabled. Just connect it and enjoy. No password needed for both the TV PLUS and the HollyStar VoD services. The only exception is the Netflix App: to use it, you need to already have or open a new Netflix account (best done on the computer). On the TV box, you’ll need to enter your user name and password once, and the box will always keep you logged on.

1 ) Our remote control has 4 programmable buttons on the top right (Power, Source, VOL+ and VOL-). They can be programmed to control your TV or your A/V receiver, as the case may be. Just point the TV’s remote to ours, execute some keystrokes and the TV PLUS remote will now control the needed functions of your TV.

2) The TV box supports various functions of the HDMI CEC protocol. This just means that the TV and the box can talk to each other over the HDMI cable. So you can program the TV to turn off or on the box when it goes off or on. Or vice versa.

There are more manuals, of course. As we constantly add new features, we prefer to keep the manuals online and updated to the latest status. You can always download the manuals as PDF and print them if you prefer. The manuals are made available under /Support. …and we hope you’ll find the TV box so easy to use that you won’t need a manual.

We make software updates available to you free of charge. The TV box constantly checks for updates but it will never interrupt you with messages or start an update out of the blue. You may notice a message when you start the by connecting the power cable (a.k.a. cold start), but you can skip the message. The TV box will then download the update in the background and perform the update when you go to standby. If you prefer to do an update manually, the download takes about a minute on a 50 Mbit/s connection and the update itself takes less then a minute.

The TV PLUS box is fully compliant with the current CH and EU energy efficiency norms. It uses about 4W in full operation and around 0.5W in standby mode. If you are not using the box for about 3h it will automatically go to standby to conserve energy and your Internet bandwidth. To wake up from standby, the box typically needs about 4 seconds after you press the power button. Incidentally, the cold boot (when you connect the power cable) takes 30-40 seconds, so that’s fast too.

We currently have about 90 HD (high-definition) channels. The quality is excellent due to the careful selection of technologies used. The SD (standard definition) channels are similar in quality to a good DVD. 4K (UHD) quality is currently available for select Netflix and Youtube content. Unfortunately, the TV industry is not producing a lot in 4K due to its high cost, but that will come.

Yes, and it can be used in an “emergency”. But we discourage the use of WiFi for watching TV. It is Ok for small handheld devices, but due to the extremely variable performance, using WiFi when connected to a 50′ screen will produce deteriorated picture quality from time to time. It depends mainly on your installation, distance to the WiFi station, presence of metallic objects, etc. We definitely recommend using a wired internet connection with an Ethernet (a.k.a. RJ45) cable. If you are unable to pull an Ethernet cable to the location of your box, we recommend the use of so-called Powerline plugs. They are relatively inexpensive, very easy to use (just plug them into your power outlet) and require no setup or maintenance. Powerline devices use your electrical wiring in the home to transport the Internet signal from your router/modem to the location of your TV PLUS box. They are made by Devolo, Fritz!, Netgear, Zyxel and many others and readily available in stores and online. Learn more

Both. for streaming from your local network you need to have a DLNA (also called UPnP) share server set up. Most NAS devices have such a server built in and only need to be activated. Every PC or MAC also has sharing possibilities. With e.g. Windows 10 you need to do these steps to activate streaming from your PC:

press the Windows button

Search for “Media Streaming Options” and click the result to open Control Panel on that section

Click the Turn on media streaming button to enable DLNA on Windows 10. Turn on media streaming on Windows 10.

Click OK to apply the settings and complete the task

It is easy: activate sharing on your PC or NAS, press the Media button on the TV PLUS remote control and wait a bit. All DLNA servers on your network will be automatically scanned and shown. You can also consult the Internet about DLNA, there are many articles covering that topic. You can also play music, videos and photos from a USB stick. Just plug it into the box, press the Media button on the TV PLUS remote control and select the USB drive.

Yes, it is possible and it’s easy. While the program is still running, press the ‘Guide’ button on your remote control. The Electronic Program Guide appears and the running program is highlighted. The detail page of the program shows up when you press the ‘OK’ button. Press ‘OK’ again and you can choose between ‘Watch live’ and ‘Start from the beginning’. Pick ‘Start from the beginning’ and the program will start playing from the beginning. To watch programs that are entirely in the past: press the ‘Guide’ button and find the program you want (choose a different day using the green button if necessary). Press the ‘OK’ button once and the detail page of the program shows up. On the top right corner you have the choice between ‘Watch now’ and ‘Record’. Press OK to ‘Watch now’ and the requested show will start from the beginning. And: you can use the REW button to find the beginning of a program, but using the GUIDE is faster.

The Yallo Box uses 3G or 4G mobile phone technology to access the Internet and is basically a “hot spot” device. The TV Box can be connected to the existing Ethernet (LAN) socket – it only works if you set the “LAN only” setting on the Yallo Box under Settings / Ethernet / Ethernet settings. As with any mobile, the 3G/4G reception in your location may be good or bad and may vary considerably over time. In addition, this technology involves “shared access,” the actual speed of the mobile Internet for home use depends on how many devices are connected to the same radio cell. We do not encourage using the Yallo solution. The TV streaming requires an Internet access that is fast enough and is continuously able to deliver the requested performance. We normally state that the TV Box needs an Internet access capable of providing 30 Mbit/s and experience has shown that hot spot solutions may not be able to reliably deliver that performance.

The TV programs are only available in stereo from our sources. This will not change in the near future, although we are always talking to our suppliers about this. The same is true with Youtube content. On the other hand, the MyMedia app and possibly Netflix support multi-channel sound. In order to use it, you need to connect an appropriate decoder to the output of the TV Box. Either use the new feature of the volume control (using the DOWN button while the volume control graphic is on screen) or go to Settings / Sounds / Digital sounds to set automatic passthrough detection mode to ON. You may need to experiment with the settings for a while to find a mode that is appropriate for your system.

Internet by TV PLUS (5)

The simplest way is to call up your old service provider and ask for the conditions of canceling. In most cases you will be able to cancel if you have been using your subscription for more than 12 months. Please make sure you understand the conditions and read the “small print”. Please note: the TV PLUS boxes will work on your old existing subscription. So you can already order the TV PLUS service and even use it in parallel with your existing TV solution until you can cancel without having to pay a cancellation fee. In addition to the TV PLUS service, TV PLUS also offers our own Internet Service – see the INTERNET tab on our website.

The rule of thumb is: 5Mbit/s (Megabits per second) of download speed and very little upload speed per box. It is useful to add some reserves to that minimum. We do recommend at least a “30/10” connection, to be on the safe side, especially if you have 2-3 boxes. So, if your Internet Provider says something like “50/50” or “100/10”, that is way more than enough to have 5 boxes working at the same time + surfing the Web + sending emails + a moderate file download, all on the same Internet access. Note: e.g. “50/5” refers to 50 Mbit/s download and 5 Mbit/s upload speed.

The Internet packages are designated by their speed, e.g. “Internet Package VDSL 100”. This package allows the top download speed of 100Mbit/s (Download means getting data from the Internet to my device) and upload speed of 20Mbit/s (Upload means getting data from my device to the Internet). The address checker might deliver a result such as this: Max Download speed: 40 Mbit/s Max Upload speed: 16 Mbit/s This is the actual technically feasible speed at your location. Both the “Internet Package VDSL 100” and the “Internet Package VDSL 50” would work at this location. But with the “Internet Package VDSL 50” you would have the Upload speed of 40Mbit/s, but only the Upload speed of 10Mbit/s instead of the maximally possible 16Mbit/s.

Yes, and it can be used in an “emergency”. But we discourage the use of WiFi for watching TV. It is Ok for small handheld devices, but due to the extremely variable performance, using WiFi when connected to a 50′ screen will produce deteriorated picture quality from time to time. It depends mainly on your installation, distance to the WiFi station, presence of metallic objects, etc. We definitely recommend using a wired internet connection with an Ethernet (a.k.a. RJ45) cable. If you are unable to pull an Ethernet cable to the location of your box, we recommend the use of so-called Powerline plugs. They are relatively inexpensive, very easy to use (just plug them into your power outlet) and require no setup or maintenance. Powerline devices use your electrical wiring in the home to transport the Internet signal from your router/modem to the location of your TV PLUS box. They are made by Devolo, Fritz!, Netgear, Zyxel and many others and readily available in stores and online. Learn more

When you order your Internet-Router we also propose to order the Router Configuration Service. Your router will be shipped to you already pre-configured and ready to connect to your new Internet account. For the brave: if you do not order the Router Configuration Service, you will have to configure your router by yourself…